UK-Western Kentucky is a rare basketball matchup. Will Mark Pope schedule more like it?

For just the fifth time in the history of the two proud men’s basketball programs, UK and Western Kentucky met in a regular-season game Tuesday night in Rupp Arena.

Will matchups like this one become a staple of the Mark Pope era?

“These in-state games are always fun for everyone,” Pope said to open his press conference after the No. 8-ranked Wildcats defeated the Hilltoppers 87-68.

Kentucky’s first-year head coach — now 6-0 to start the season — said his team approached the rare battle with Western Kentucky (3-3) like a first-round NCAA Tournament matchup. The Hilltoppers made it to March Madness last season, and the grit they brought to Rupp on Tuesday — keeping things closer than any of UK’s previous opponents other than Duke — hinted that WKU could be playing there again at the end of this one.

“Well, I think in-state games are great, because they’re always tough,” Pope said. “There’s just added emotion, right? There’s just a pride to it. … And so when we get them, they’ll be super useful.”

Pope stopped short of promising games against more in-state opponents in the future and said this particular matchup was more “out of his hands” than some others on UK’s 2024-25 schedule.

The game was one of three in the Wildcats’ “multi-team event” for this season — a collection dubbed the “BBN Invitational” with the matchups put together by a third party — and Pope clarified that he didn’t specifically set out to rekindle the UK-WKU series in his first season in charge. But the Kentucky coach did seem to enjoy the challenge.

“Western Kentucky has got an incredible basketball history. I love everything about the team, except for that red color just drives me crazy,” Pope said, grinning at the reference to Louisville. “But (WKU coach Hank Plona) is doing a great job. And they’re a national brand, and they got a ton of pride, and they have a really good veteran team coming back that went to the tournament last year. So I like it because it’s a good game, and I like it because it’s in-state.”

It’ll be interesting to see if more games like this happen moving forward.

While Kentucky has regularly played against in-state opponents dating back to the Rick Pitino era, getting at least one school from the commonwealth on the schedule every season would be a marked shift from recent years.

Longtime UK coach Adolph Rupp, who was in charge of the program from 1930 to 1972, famously avoided scheduling in-state schools. The Cats completely phased out games against other Kentucky programs early in his tenure, and that remained UK’s standard practice even after Rupp’s departure.

The UK-Louisville series was finally reignited in 1983 — the first time the two schools had met in the regular season in 61 years — and that matchup has obviously been an annual tradition since. But UK continued to avoid other in-state schools throughout the rest of the 1980s.

Pitino finally delivered Western Kentucky to UK’s regular-season schedule for the first time in the 1990-91 and 1991-92 seasons, but there was a personal tie there. Ralph Willard — the top assistant on Pitino’s first UK team — became WKU’s head coach in 1990.

Since then, Western Kentucky was a planned game on UK’s schedule only twice: the 2001-02 season (when the Hilltoppers upset the Cats in Rupp Arena) and Tuesday night’s matchup. The two sides also played during the 2021-22 season, but WKU was a late replacement for Louisville, which couldn’t play due to COVID-19 protocols at the time.

Pitino also added Eastern Kentucky to UK’s schedule during that 1990-91 season, and Morehead State played its first regular-season game against the Wildcats the following year. (In fact, EKU, Morehead and WKU were all on the 1991-92 schedule.)

Eastern Kentucky and Morehead have remained relatively regular opponents for the Wildcats ever since. UK has now played EKU 11 times and Morehead State 10 times.

Kentucky has never played Murray State in men’s basketball, and the Cats have played Bellarmine and Northern Kentucky — both relative newcomers to Division I — once each since they ascended to D-1 status.

In all, an in-state opponent other than Louisville was scheduled in eight of John Calipari’s 15 seasons here (not counting the fill-in game against WKU).

Kentucky didn’t play any regular-season games against non-Louisville in-state opponents in Billy Gillispie’s two seasons. There were eight games against such teams in Tubby Smith’s 10 seasons, and there were 10 such games in Pitino’s eight years in charge.

Previous UK coaches have also regularly scheduled in-state opponents below the Division I level for exhibition games. Calipari had at least one Kentucky school — and often two — on every single one of his exhibition schedules during his time with the Wildcats.

Pope continued that streak with Kentucky Wesleyan on the exhibition slate this season.

This story was originally published November 26, 2024 at 10:26 PM.

Ben Roberts

Lexington Herald-Leader

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Ben Roberts is the University of Kentucky men’s basketball beat writer for the Lexington Herald-Leader. He has previously specialized in UK basketball recruiting coverage and created and maintained the Next Cats blog. He is a Franklin County native and first joined the Herald-Leader in 2006. Support my work with a digital subscription